


Witness mark

by Kangoo



Category: Dishonored (Video Games), Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:15:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28693071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangoo/pseuds/Kangoo
Summary: Max meets a god in the Two Whales diner
Comments: 7
Kudos: 12





	Witness mark

**Author's Note:**

> yet another thing posted on tumblr and never here
> 
> the outsider: ohh a traumatized kid  
> the outsider: im gonna make it worse

Max steps into the Two Whales diner not knowing how or when she got there. Blue light seeps through the cracks in the walls, and when she glances through she glimpses huge shadows drifting in an endless sea. The customers are all frozen in place, like statues. There’s Joyce, stumbling on a loose tile, a cup of coffee frozen in flight, its content suspended in a wave of liquid that looks a little bit like glass. It’s like someone took a picture and threw her inside it, leaving her the only moving thing in the snapshot.

Well, almost only.

“Hello, Maxine,” the stranger says. His pitch-black eyes settle on her, unfathomable and laughing. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

He catches the cup and fills it with the coffee, handing it to her. At a loss, she takes it — the coffee slushes and nearly goes over the brim once held in her shaky hands, as if it had never been frozen six feet in the air. It’s ice cold.

She takes a sip anyway. 

“I knew a place like this, once, though dirtier — and named after a beast much more different from me than this one.” He tilts his head. His lips quirk in an unreadable half-smile. “Do you still know this place, or has distance faded the memories of it? Is it even recognizable anymore, knowing Chloe will never go through that door, will never be waiting for you behind the counter again? How tragic, to find your childhood friend again only to have her die in front of your eyes moments after.”

Mouthing off feels like a bad idea, but with Chloe’s terrified eyes still fresh in her mind it’s hard to stop herself. It’s a dream anyway — what’s the worst that could happen?

“What’s your point?” She crosses her arms, tries to make herself feel safer and tougher. “Who are _you_?”

A blink and suddenly he’s barely a foot away from her, dark mist trailing after the edges of his odd clothes. Up close she can see his skin is sickly pale, his lips tinted blue, his hair plastered to his forehead — he looks like a drowned man. The tang of salt water hangs heavy in the air. Somewhere, she swears she can hear a whale sing.

“I am the Outsider,” he tells her, like it’s a joke, or a secret. “And this is my mark.”

The words are a spark, and her hand is kindle. She drops the cup and it shatters on the ground, spilling coffee everywhere. She follows it down, curls on herself and cradles her hand against her chest. It _burns_ for a second (an eternity) and when she blinks the tears out of her eyes she sees black ink etching itself under her skin.

She rises on shaking legs, but the stranger is nowhere to be found. She still feels watched.

Her hand tingles. She closes it and Joyce leans back like a tape wound backward. Pieces of ceramics gather into a mug and jump back on her tray, once again whole and full of coffee.

(The dream falls apart before she can fully understand what he has given her the ability to do. The mark is still there when she wakes up. So is the whalesong, like an echo, like a laugh.)

**Author's Note:**

> come haunt me on [tumblr](https://youngster-monster.tumblr.com/)


End file.
